Budget committee backs prevailing wage rules for street cleaning and homeless voucher funding

The Board of Supervisors' Budget and Finance Committee recommended Wednesday that the full board require prevailing wages on future City contracts and grants for street cleaning, after adopting amendments negotiated with labor, nonprofits and city departments.

The ordinance amends the Labor and Employment Code. It defines street cleaning as power washing, steam cleaning and bulk waste removal, and exempts workforce programs, some work paid for through community benefit district assessments, and incidental services. Public comment ran mostly in support, with labor representatives and workers backing the wage requirement. A community benefit district representative raised concerns that the ordinance could create split wage requirements, with some workers on the same sidewalk covered and others not, and said the prevailing wage rates that would apply are not yet known. The budget analyst told the committee the change could raise annual costs and could also affect ambassador contracts, which property assessments help pay for. The committee adopted the amendments and sent the ordinance to the full board with a positive recommendation.

On housing, the committee recommended a grant of up to $28,750,000 from the Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing to the San Francisco Housing Authority to keep rental subsidies in place for households in the federal Emergency Housing Voucher program, which HUD is winding down. The money comes from the city's homelessness gross receipts tax and would run from October 2026 through June 2029. Staff said some households are moving to new federal vouchers this month and more are expected by the end of the year, and that the goal is for no one to have to move or return to homelessness. A supervisor thanked the department for stepping in as federal agencies pull back. The budget analyst said the grant carries some risk because the federal housing appropriation is not final. The vote was 3-0.

A second health grant, about $11.2 million from the California Department of Health Care Services, would fund renovation of a city building into a Health Recovery and Connection Center. The center is to include behavioral health access, walk-in medication services, a pharmacy, a sobering center and City Clinic. Department staff described the overall project as far larger than the grant and said the required local match is covered by Proposition C gross receipts tax revenue and general obligation bond funds. Supervisors asked whether vacating space the department uses elsewhere would produce savings, and pressed staff on the sobering center, which the department will run with a provider still to be selected and which is not expected to open for several years. The budget analyst recommended approval and said the project's cost rose because of voluntary seismic work and an added staircase. The vote was 3-0.

The committee also recommended five as-needed environmental review contracts for the Public Utilities Commission, each worth up to $15,000,000 over seven years, with options to extend for three more. The firms include Stantec Consulting Services, Inc., Environmental Science Associates and Panorama Environmental, Inc. The contracts cover analysis under state and federal environmental law, permitting with agencies including the Army Corps of Engineers, the Coastal Commission and the regional water board, and monitoring during construction. Staff said the scope was sized from the utility's ten-year capital plan, that each contract is a small share of that spending, and that every firm committed to subcontracting with local businesses. Water, wastewater and power customer revenues would pay for the work. The vote was 3-0, and no one spoke in public comment.

Also recommended was a state earmark of up to $1,000,000 for the Sunset Boulevard Recycled Water Irrigation Improvement Project. The work would connect irrigation in a greenbelt along Sunset Boulevard to an existing recycled water main and remove drinking water connections there, with indirect cost recovery waived. Public works staff said the project would cut the drinking water used for irrigation each year. No questions or public comment were raised.

Two retroactive grants from the city's LGBTQI+ and various communities program also moved. Both reimburse organizations for services delivered after the agency approved six-month grant extensions in December 2024. An amendment not to exceed $450,000 for the Center for Immigration (The LGBT Asylum Project), the fiscal sponsor for Parivar Bay Area, was amended to change the named fiscal sponsor and to add findings on the assignment of the grant agreement, then continued to the committee's next meeting. A separate amendment not to exceed $300,000 for Community United Against Violence went to the full board with a positive recommendation as part of the same motion, which carried on a roll call. The board president spoke in support of the violence-prevention grant, and the chair said the city has to fund communities that philanthropy will not. Two speakers described the grantee's service record and the loss of its space.

The committee also recommended a five-year lease amendment at 650-5th Street for Department of Public Health jail health services offices, at $122,400 in annual base rent. Staff said the rent was renegotiated lower and reflects fair market value. The vote was 3-0.